From Charles Pattison, President, 1000 Friends of Florida:
Please call your legislators to oppose HB 703:
We don’t usually start this early on notices about problematic bills up for consideration, but
HB 703 has some particularly egregious language that strips local home rule authority related to comprehensive plans and environmental protections.
When the state legislature dismantled state oversight for growth management and abolished the DCA, they said they wanted to leave local land use decisions to local governments. Some legislators seem to have forgotten they said that, and are apparently determined to make sure that local governments aren’t allowed to make local decisions.
Lines 46-50 would pre-empt, retroactively, local government authority to protect wetlands, springs, and stormwater runoff if done through ordinances or rules adopted after July 1, 2003. This retroactive provision is unprecedented and would directly contradict the home rule authority given to local governments as part of their responsibilities under both the 1985 Growth Management Act and the 2011 Community Planning Act. It would effectively repeal any comprehensive plan policies, implementing regulations, and similar land use controls on these issues adopted since 2003.
Lines 88-90 would pre-empt local government authority under the same above statutes
with respect to how votes are to be conducted when considering comprehensive plans and/or plan amendments. Many local governments do use a majority vote, but others have chosen a higher standard, especially when it concerns particularly important local policy issues. We believe this is the very kind of determination that should be made by each local government, and not Tallahassee.Why should Tallahassee dictate how a local government conducts its own business?
Finally, Lines 141-145 continue an ominous path toward state pre-emption of local authority. These provisions wouldeliminate the possibility of a local government reconsidering a prior comprehensive plan amendment affecting an agricultural tract if the land continues to qualify as a bona fide agricultural operation under s.193.461. This provision would effectively vest agricultural tracts meeting this standard, something that is not done for any other land use category in s.163.We believe such a provision is neither warranted nor justifiable.
Please take a few minutes to contact your state elected officials to let them know how dangerous this bill is. Representative Patronis needs to hear as early as possible that this is not the kind of legislation the public supports. Remind the legislature in particular that it said it believed in home rule. Share this information with your local elected officials as well, as it undermines their authority to make key local decisions.